President Has A Bleak Year Facing Him In `87

In this retirement community, golf and reminiscing dominate the day, along with checking investments and comparing the feats of grandchildren.

President Reagan ended the worst year of his presidency here, secluded from the news media and the public glare, among friends from his movie days. Most of them, like Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart, are retired now and only dabble in the occasional TV fundraiser or special.

Reagan is not retired, and he had to leave Friday to fly from the sunny, dry 70-degree weather of this desert valley to a sleet- and snow-drenched Washington.

Today, he is to enter the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., for an examination to see if there has been a recurrence of cancer in his colon. On Monday, Reagan undergoes a procedure to reduce swelling of the prostate gland. He is expected to stay in the hospital until Thursday.

His spokesman, Larry Speakes, has tried to play down the operation. The White House, Speakes said, would not provide those dramatic medical briefings by the President`s physicians and instead would rely on routine news releases. But the prostate operation might reveal a new cancer, and thus a new medical crisis.

All in all, it was a bleak New Year`s celebration for the 75-year-old President. It is likely he found it hard to tear himself away from Sunnyland, the estate of Walter Annenberg, to climb aboard Air Force One to return to the capital. Nevertheless, he left here Friday with a cheery wave and a prediction that 1987 ``would be better than 1986.``

It is all the more dismaying for him because he now may feel he can never restore his presidency to the place in history he thought it deserved.

Instead, Reagan faces a sea of difficulties, particularly in foreign policy, that must make the coming months appear grim at best. It is no solace to the President, even if he acknowledges it, that he created the more serious of his difficulties.

At the core of his problems are the Iran affair and the secret diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan rebels.

A year ago, at a National Security Council meeting on Jan. 7, he approved continuing to sell U.S. weapons to Iran, and it was from the sale of these weapons that money allegedly was sent to the contras fighting the government of Nicaragua.

The furor growing out of these operations dominates his presidency and clouds other important foreign policy issues.

On New Year`s Day, the President broadcast a message of continued hope for arms control to the Soviet people that was played unobstructed over some Moscow stations and later translated into Russian for replay on state-run radio.

Yet even as he spoke, Reagan`s bargaining position seemed to be eroding. When he became President, Reagan carried the image of a dynamic leader, when contrasted with the illness-ridden, old guard at the Kremlin.

But now Reagan and his administration seem to be the ones faltering with disease and political difficulties. CIA director William Casey lies in a hospital bed after removal of a brain tumor and Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige recently was released from medical care.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev seems the one blessed with youth and direction.

The decision to trade American journalist Nicholas Daniloff for Soviet espionage agent Gennady Zakharov last summer marked a point at which U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union faltered.

This quickly was followed by the summit at Reykjavik, Iceland, that left Reagan and his foreign policy advisers appearing to have been mouse-trapped by the Soviets.

Until Reykjavik, the President`s strength in arms-control negotiations lay, in part, in his conservative perspective, with the notion that if Reagan struck a bargain with Moscow, it would be a bargain even strong anti-Communists could live with.

But Reykjavik and the Iran affair have tarnished that perception. In Reykjavik, the President was made to look ineffective. In the Iran affair, he was depicted as duplicitous. He said he would not dealwith terrorists, and the polls showed the majority of people think that is what he did.

Now any arms-control agreement Reagan might reach will come under far greater scrutiny at home and enormous skepticism in Europe. Because several European nations have their own nuclear forces, no real arms control can be reached without some concert in thinking.

In Central America, the possibility of illegalities having occurred in support for the contras may result in Congress refusing to continue U.S. support for the war.

Well-placed government sources said the $100 million in aid authorized late last summer never was considered enough for the contras to win a final victory and it was hoped that Congress would increase support in 1987.

Without the assistance, the contra cause may be severly hampered.

What is tricky for Reagan and his advisers is that the contras were the core of their Central American policy.